US Close: Stocks drift ahead of CPI/Earnings, JOLTS miss, IMF lowers outlook, Fastenal’s inflation warning

US stocks are mixed as investors refrain from any major positioning ahead of the September inflation report, official start to earnings season, and the House debt limit vote. JPMorgan gets to officially kick off earnings season, but Fastenal, the industrial giant gets to be the first S&P 500 company to post results. Fastenal’s results did not deliver any surprises, primarily giving a reminder that supply chain and labor shortages remain and that inflation remains elevated.

Stocks were lower early over both global growth concerns and weakness with China’s property sector but turned positive after House Speaker Pelosi provided a potential path for getting infrastructure spending and the debt ceiling done.  Pelosi noted that Democrats lower the price tag of Biden’s economic agenda by cutting the number of years covered in the agenda.  Risks to the outlook are rising and Democrats know they are running out of time.  Progressives and moderates don’t want to be responsible for disrupting Biden’s economic agenda, so it looks like some major concessions will be made shortly. 

JOLTS

Job openings in August posted the first decline in almost a year and the number of quits rose to a record high 4.3 million.  The delta variant is clearly reflected in the headline miss of 10.439 million job openings, well below the consensus estimate of 10.954 and the upwardly revised 11.098 million prior reading.  The labor market recovery will remain tricky and that should push back expectations on when the Fed will be able to check off the substantial progress box. 

Fastenal/LVMH

The industrial products maker did not deliver any surprises.  The manufacturing sector agrees with Fastenal’s comment that “product and shipping cost inflation remains high; Supply chain disruption and labor shortages remain acute.”  Fastenal did not impress as sales for certain products related to the pandemic eased.  Fastenal will continue to increase prices in the fourth quarter.

LVMH posted slightly better-than-expected third quarter revenue and anticipates continuation of the current growth. 

IMF

The IMF’s World Economic Outlook noted that the global recovery continues, but the momentum has weakened and uncertainty has increased.  The IMF is concerned that surging prices will force central banks into tightening cycles that could trigger selloffs in global equities. An unbalance economic recovery and rising pricing pressures will complicate monetary policy efforts going forward.  

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.

Ed Moya

Ed Moya

Contributing Author at OANDA
With more than 20 years’ trading experience, Ed Moya was a Senior Market Analyst with OANDA for the Americas from November 2018 to November 2023. His particular expertise lies across a wide range of asset classes including FX, commodities, fixed income, stocks and cryptocurrencies. Over the course of his career, Ed has worked with some of the leading forex brokerages, research teams and news departments on Wall Street including Global Forex Trading, FX Solutions and Trading Advantage. Prior to OANDA he worked with TradeTheNews.com, where he provided market analysis on economic data and corporate news. Based in New York, Ed is a regular guest on several major financial television networks including CNBC, Bloomberg TV, Yahoo! Finance Live, Fox Business, cheddar news, and CoinDesk TV. His views are trusted by the world’s most respected global newswires including Reuters, Bloomberg and the Associated Press, and he is regularly quoted in leading publications such as MSN, MarketWatch, Forbes, Seeking Alpha, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Ed holds a BA in Economics from Rutgers University.